Feeling Like Less of a Man

There are a few things in life that guys are inherently proud of. One of these is the ability to eat. A lot.

Thus came the food challenge. Eat some disgusting amount of food, just because we can, and we'll put a picture of you or the wall or something. Somehow, I had made it to this point in my life without ever competing in one of these.

A few weeks ago Tom found a pizzeria that had a twenty-four inch pizza challenge. Two guys (or girls I guess. gross.) have one hour to eat it. Yesterday I decided I was hungry. So I sent Tom a message telling him it was the night to own this challenge. The problem began with a four hour lapse in the time it took for my phone to send a message to his phone. So he ate quite a bit around four. And when I got home around five, I was starving. So I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And then a salami and gouda sandwich on a hoagie roll. But it was only a twenty-four inch pizza, right?


I think we might have underestimated it. I might have been able to finish my half, uncomfortably, but luckily Tom was a little further behind. With a little less than a quarter of the pizza left, we tapped out. It was a little humiliating to both of us. Though I can deal with that. What I am not happy about is having to go back and eat the whole thing again sometime. But that picture on the wall will be mine.

A Little More Gas

I moved into my current house August 15th. Tom and I lived there for about a month alone, without any real problems. Jeffrey moved in about that time and started complaining that he had no hot water. Though it occasionally wasn't super hot for me, I didn't really think it was a problem. So after looking at the water heater one day, realizing I couldn't see the pilot light, and clicking the button a few times, I left it alone. However, the new roommates moved in this week, turned the a/c down fifteen degrees, and my shower was very cold suddenly. I knew that they hadn't showered for hours so I thought about it more that day.

About two in the morning last night Jeffrey and I took a look at the water heater. I discovered shortly that I could see the pilot light if I slid this little piece of metal over. Then I made the discovery that if I moved the little dial to "on" instead of "pilot" a lot more fire came out.

This morning the shower was just a little better.

Wounds That Never Heal

No I'm not talking about a love lost in my life!! I'm actually talking about my foot. My senior year of high school I suddenly couldn't walk anymore on my right heel. Apparently the repeated kicking close of my shower door had stress fractured my heel. And it really hurt. This pathetic looking, almost invisible line on an x-ray. I wore a boot for three weeks and gel pads for the rest of football season.

The problem is, it has never really healed. So here I am eight years later and still my heel occasionally bothers me. I can also say this about my numb lip from jaw surgery, or forehead from the motorcycle accident. But I suppose sometimes it's a good idea to have little memories of what we've been through.

I Don't Eat Corndogs Everyday

I haven't been cooking much lately in the last few weeks. I have made a few things though.

Stinky fish. Dover sole. Terribly, terribly stinky fish, but surprisingly good.


I bought a slap chop!! I love it!!


Christin called me up the other day and told me we needed to make dinner. So she came over and used the eggplants that came from my garden, and basil that came from my garden, and we cooked up some delicious eggplant miso. It was delicious.

Doesn't she look so happy?


Our miso eggplant.


Mirin glazed chilean sea bass.


Isn't it pretty?

The Bucket List: Revised

I have recently found a few new shows that I have begun watching from time to time. The Good Guys, Burn Notice, and even The Wild Boyz from time to time. But last night I stumbled upon something new: The Buried Life. I'm pretty sold on it. I am not one of those people who frequently thinks about things he needs to do before he dies. But from time to time I don't think I am doing enough with my life. I don't really make lists, and goals are not something I often make. Maybe I don't have enough vision, or maybe I just live in the moment a bit too much. There's things I can work on. And though a lot of the things they do for themselves are stupid (ie. sneak into the Playboy Mansion), the things they do for people are great. And when they have an idea, a goal, they go for it. MTV actually inspired me.



If you have twenty minutes to blow, this is pretty awesome!! Click here.

Time To Plan

It is now officially one month from my birthday. I need to start planning the fun.

Who's Idea Was This?

A few months ago I was with Jeffrey when he found out about this music festival in L.A. "Buy me a ticket," I say. I'm still not exactly sure why I told him that I would go to this music festival of some thirty bands, none of which I had EVER heard of before. But at the time it sounded like fun. And it was only twenty dollars.

The group we were going with changed several times over the course of the next few months, and from the Phoenix area it only included me and Olivia. Olivia is Jeffrey's love for the time. I had seen her, though never spoken to her. The good news is we had a six hour car ride to get to know each other.

When we got there we decided to stay where Jeffrey was in the extension office. They decided to not go for apartments, but instead rent a very large house (it's on the market for 2.7 million) from some guy that ran out of money before completing it and couldn't sell it. Sounds kind of cool, but living with that many sales reps in a house furnished with pretty much just beds and a ping pong table isn't really all it's cracked up to be. But it was pretty to look at from the outside.


In the morning we had phenomenal pancakes at Original Pancake House (or something like that). Jeffrey had the German pancake, I had the Swedish pancakes, and Olivia had normal pancakes topped with peaches (and I ate two of them...). I didn't actually know I could be so impressed with a House of Pancakes. We headed afterwards to the venue, and proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait. See they made a mistake and didn't send the tickets to Jeffrey for some reason, so we stood in the will call line for three hours. Yep. Three hours. Now I could go off about how miserable this was, because it kind of was. However, I was able to take the opportunity to realize that this was not my normal crowd. It was probably the most interesting group of people I had ever seen. In my whole life. I decided later that I would start taking pictures of some of them for the blog.

Anyways. I really did have a good time. I enjoyed Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, The Mountain Goats, and !!!. And though I wouldn't listen to them much, we danced our little hearts out to The Rapture. Which in turn got everyone within twenty feet of us dancing. And it was awesome.

By the time everything wrapped up it was almost twelve. And yes, I was starving. We made our way to Pink's which is pretty famous for their hot dogs. And it happened to be next to one of the funniest signs I have EVER seen. I had to immediately send this to a bunch of people.


And the hot dogs were awesome too.



And Sunday I found Bridget's brown doppleganger!!! I didn't realize it at first, but as soon as Jeffrey mentioned it to me, I couldn't see her as anything else. So we talked Olivia into going and asking her for a picture because she reminded her of a friend. Awesome.


I don't go out of my comfort zone nearly enough sometimes. What a great weekend.